Non-motorized scooters, particularly of the sort typified by kick scooters are rapidly entering competitive circles for stunt performances and other extreme forms of competition. Most popular of the kick scooters is the Razor® scooter. The force of activities on a typical scooter will often result in various parts of the scooter to fail. As can be imagined, because of the inherent danger of these stunts, a failed scooter component can result in serious injury to the rider. Therefore, there has been an increasing interest in ruggedizing various components of the scooter.
One particular area where little attention has been devoted is the joint between the stem of the handle bars and the fork of the front wheel. No one has successfully devised a coupling mechanism that secures the stem-to-fork joint from breaking or severing under extreme loads. In view of this deficiency, various systems and methods are disclosed herein that provide a simple and yet robust solution to the stem-to-fork joint problem for bicycles, or kick scooters.